Kingston Civic Commentary

Tag Archives: Waterfront

Jason here. This is my last review of Council for Kingston electors. It was an interesting meeting having as it did the long awaited Waterfront Master Plan and the interesting debate on Pharmacare. What could this Council do but pass it. After all they had passed a motion in support of the Guaranteed Annual Income perhaps the first municipality to do so, in spite of the fact that this is a federal responsibility and Pharmacare is provincial for that matter. It doesn’t matter whose responsibility it is, the mayor will not call it’ out of order’.

One of the delegations was David McDonald who has been the main force behind a renewed waterfront. While he was generally praising the work of the consultants who worked on the plan he did wonder why the budget for renewal was for so long- 30 years. His proposal was ignored during the limited discussion on the Plan. I think this (the Waterfront Master Plan) will rise again during discussions on Council Priorities. It is too important to overlook. The City’s main attraction is its waterfront and all Councillors know it.

One of the undiscussed aspects of the meeting was the capital projects done and worked upon for 2016. Apparently there’s a report every quarter although Jason failed to notice it last quarter. This did not include those items that were put out for bidding. For that one must go into open government is making a great change in how the city operates. There seem to be a wealth of Public meetings one can go to and believe it or not your opinion matters. The public meeting is evolving. Gone are the days when people were shouted down, for saying things that the majority didn’t agree with. Now the public meeting is a place to gather opinion and the report will tell us how that opinion was used. So get rid of your apathy go to a meeting and give your opinion. There is an Institute of Public Participation we have to thank for this. Work on this will continue but the outline is there. Retirement beckons. Thanks.